It’s been a year since we heard from Fernando Aguerre, so we decided to check in on him and the restoration of his two 1942 Cadillac funeral cars. He noted that the flower car is just about done, and the hearse is next, but still a few years away. He plans to bring them to the United States when finished, and we certainly plan on bringing you details of that excursion when he does.

In the meantime, Fernando’s found another extremely interesting coachbuilt vehicle, a 1938 Ford hunting car. He found it in a remote part of Argentina about five years ago and writes:

Unlike most Fords in the USA, this was not made from a car body, but rather from a truck body. The coach builder was a company from Argentina (the car has a metallic plaque with the name of them).

Its actual function was a “Hunting” car. The car was built as what we today would call “double cab”, with a non connected rear area.

If you look carefully, behind the second seat you can see the area with the cage for the dogs. There is also another area for the hunt to be kept.

Between the second seat and the cage, with access from inside the cabin, there is a lockable area for the guns. On the very back (see picture), below the cage, there is a small tail gate, that we you open you can find a faucet for water, suppplied by a tank that seats under the cages (probably for cleaning the hunt).

The front end of the car, is exactly like the truck was, but in the rear it has bigger wheels, almost like a commercial truck. I’m not sure if this is the way the trucks used to come from the Ford Factory. It also includes a manual light (like police cars), for hunting at night.

The whole upholstery (seats, pilars and roof) were done in full grain leather, very aged by now.

The car drives very nicely.

Fernando said he’s currently restoring this as well as the funeral cars.

UPDATE (9.June 2010): Fernando informed us that the coachbuilder, according to the metal plaque still attached to the car, is Tieppo Hnos (Tieppo Brothers). A cursory googling turned up nothing on the firm.